The greatest battle in our lives is the battle of self. After all, our purpose in life is to improve to perfection. Constant self-improvement becomes the everyday goal. The pattern or cycle to achieve this is fairly simple, and is used in most companies:
- Evaluate your position
- Make plans/set goals
- Execute
- Re-evaluate
I believe that we do well at making plans and setting goals. In fact, isn't that what we do on January 1st of every year? We recommit at doing what we failed to do the previous year. But that is not the case of us as employees. We are good at making plans, executing and then evaluating, especially when our results translate into a bonus package. Why then do we fail at a personal and family level? Isn't the father of two children more than the manager of a hundred?
A suggestion about step number one that comes from a project in the MBA program named "Leadership Profile". In order to create my own leadership profile, Dr. LeBaron suggested that I ask family and co-workers for specific stories about me, pointing out key behaviors that illustrate my top three strengths. I am a firm believer that others know me better than I do myself. They see my potential while I see my limitations. Getting feedback from them has given me insights that I had never thought of myself. Now that I know where I stand, I will play to my strengths, to my competitive advantage.
